Codex

Universal/Shared fears and phobias as a race

Just as humans share many primal phobias, so does car kind. Also like humans, many of the phobias are residual and not needed for survival. While irrational, they add to our inquisitive nature.

Humans Unsurprisingly, most cars still fear humans. The ones that don't fear them just hate them. There are a few human mades still around that actually loved and protected their owners and therefore don't mind most humans either way, but that number is dwarved by the amount of anti-human vehicles in our race.

Atelophobia: When you fear being imperfect. Every car, no matter what they are or who made them, no matter how proud they are on the outside, have been afraid of imperfection at some point in their lives, or even constantly afraid. We don't even need to worry about it anymore as we have nobody to scrap us or trade us in. It's just something wired into us that bangs perfection over our hoods until we have an irrational fear that we'll be left behind. There's no rewiring that; it's who we are.
The cars that suffer from this disease are mostly Chevies, especially Silverados, but definitely not a model specific issue.

The Fear of becoming Obselete Along the same lines as Atelophobia, years of watching our new model generations roll off the line and seeing our families trade us in the second they become available really did something ugly to us after we became sentient. Sure, we weren't alive when we had owners, but we human mades still remember everything in our lives somehow after being exposed to the crystal. Every time a part went out because we were neglected, we were blamed and threatened to be traded in straight to our front ends. This is the base fear for how the Classicans act out against society, and honestly I don't blame them for being hurt.
It can manifest as rage over a failed fuel pump or depression because of a faulty brake pad on a front tire. Some cars go as far as ignoring their issues or refusing to ask for help to fix them. Most of us know better than that of course; humans don't usually break an arm and deny seeing a doctor or refuse to acknowledge they broke a limb, right?

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Make/Model Definition

Makes and models to cars are like species/breeds to anything else. Cars are proud to be what they are, and while friendships and alliances are extremely common across manufacturers, romantic relationships and partnerships are rare. Even though our race strives to separate from human traditions and expectations, we've yet to escape the bias towards other models from our processors. We try to befriend cars of other makes, but everyone still snaps every once in a blue moon. It's just who our race is; we always make up later and resume our friendships.




Cars with Human Friends/Love Interests

Despite our shared dislike towards our creators, it's fairly common for us to fall in love with good humans. After being disgraced by their own kind, they still loyally followed us and helped us escape their race's clutches at their own expense. These humans are the trusted allies of car-kind, and the last trace of our history.
The most crucial thing to remember: even when they morph into them, cars are not humans. You can't treat them like humans. We are emotionally complex (and admittedly challenged) beings and most of us can't handle rejection, or otherwise how humans respect personal space. Some models can't comprehend personal space. Cars can often fluster humans because they want to be around them so often! While some models are notorious loners, we start thinking something's wrong with us after being denied multiple times for drinks.
Due to our encoded "fleet mind", essentially an urge to flock together after decades of being owned by humans and usually having multiple other cars nearby, sometimes even the most independent cars go into a mental crisis and feel the need to be with someone. If the need becomes desperate enough, they'll literally grab onto anyone and occasionally anything that can soothe the urge. This can lead to intense object attachment, severe separation anxiety with cars or humans the individual hardly even knows, or obsession disorders. We call these random outbursts "Security Blanket Syndrome", and are usually diagnosed alongside different anxiety issues.
While these emotional outbursts usually go away on their own after a period of aggravation and lack of privacy, sometimes they don't and the individual actually needs medical attention or else they'll suffer until they do.
Sometimes, after experiencing severe trauma and having a person that helps them get through it, the car will develop permanent SBS and always correlate that person with comfort and adoration. Severely, they'll correlate that person with the only comfort and adoration they'll ever receive. This is more common in long term partnerships and are usually mutual.

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Essence Link

Soulmates may or may not be a thing in humans, but they are in our race. Essence Link is when two cars or even a car and a human are compatible enough to connect essences, or souls as you will. When two essences connect, the pair will suddenly be able to share fears, emotions, and sometimes even be able to communicate through a form of telepathy which manifests more into suddenly knowing or thinking about something. Some partners even report that they can sense where their counterpart is or even if they're in trouble. Every Essence Link case is a little different, depending on the bond the pair shares. One can even have a stronger intuition than their partner.
As it's extremely rare for two people to bond in such extreme ways, Essence Link was only confirmed within the turn of the last century. Research was performed on ten different pairs of suspected essence linked partners and ten pairs of partners that did not have it.
Even though most partners can share emotions, nobody has ever admitted to be able to share thoughts, other than the relatively rare specialized telepathy.

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Cars and visual customization

The first thing you do when you get a new sports car is customize it, usually. You slap new paint on him, get him some rediculous rims, and maybe even put some under lighting in the wheel wells.
Like humans getting tattoos, piercings, and wearing jewelry, customization depends on our personal tastes. While most cars that enjoyed their owners keep the appearance they fitted them up with, no matter how rediculous they feel (or look), not every car is into customization. Some enjoy being who they were born or rolled off the line as, others practically change make and model they change their appearance so dynamically.
Permanent changes, like paint color, pinstripes, flames, and body kits are likened to tattoos; these are more hesitant considerations to the individual. Sure, they can always get a new paint job, but those are Forduva expensive these days, you know? Not all of us have the funds for that. Rims, brake calipers, wings and spoilers, and even stick-on gemstones are more like jewelry or shoes; they can all be swapped out at will, and some cars have multiple sets of any of the above at any given time. (Have you ever seen the wheel collection sitting in a Cadillac's closet?)
Trucks and SUVs don't usually follow the trends of sports cars, naturally, and have their own personal tastes. It's actually surprisingly rare to find a bone stock 4x4 of any archetype off Earth; trucks adore lift kits. They would lift themselves to Rhemaria if it were road legal. If the tire fits their ground clearance, they put it on just to look an inch taller. Fender flares? Make sure they're wide enough to get you stuck in a tunnel. Oh, and keep your towing mirrors out full length at all times. Truck culture is about being the biggest brute on the planet, and if you're smaller, you're weaker. (Er-hem-hem--Jorgen, Mayhem, Summit, Tycho, Torrent, etc). Just make sure your lift is actually off-road capable or else you're stuck getting called a "pavement princess" until you can actually off-road.
Now that we've gone over individual tastes, what do other cars think when they see a "fully customized individual"? ...Well, it depends on what work they've had done. Outrageous designs are often looked at in equal parts of awe and disdain, while more aesthetic and less permanent changes are more well accepted. Trucks are actually preferred lifted over factory level; the ladies love big boys. Remember, kids; the louder and prouder the appearance, the less likely they're a quiet individual.

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Fuel Types and Rivalry

Diesels and Gasolines are definitely the "rulers" of all four planets, and they peacefully coexist with each other, plus with Hydrogens, Hybrids, and flex fuels.
In fact, the fuel you ran on wasn't even a remote concern until the creation of Greenlighters, electric vehicles that have a burning hate for anything fuel powered. Yes, even hybrids.
While they don't care who runs on what, different fuel types have varying personalities.
Diesels are the workhorses; they're proud, usually loud but some are pretty placid, and eager to have jobs. A diesel without a job is depressed. Even diesel powered small cars feel the need to work. They're more patient with others, and are always eager to lend
Gasolines, making up most of our population, are more energetic, peppy, and easy going. They enjoy working but are fine with being in-between jobs.

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Celebrities in our World

Every culture has celebrities. Like humans, becoming famous doesn't matter about appearance or gender, but rather their skills and/or charisma. They can be famous athletes, bloggers, off-roaders, parents, or artists in music or physical artwork. Some are simply known for their unorthodox abilities or YouJoint channels. The celebrity stick seems to hit the hoods of unknown talent quite often, so we have many a famous person on any planet.
Some notable vehicles are the following:

@ImperialAscent ImperialAscent is a famous off-road Subaru Ascent named Kory who travels Prismona purely by the unbeaten path in order to find amazing places and views. He also shares his favorite equipment of the week and helps new and aspiring adventurers get a tire in the game. He's very upbeat and randomly surprises one of his lucky fans after the end of each of his videos with a light-hearted greeting and a free aftermarket winch system. Nobody knows when Kory will strike; he literally shows up.

Miata Happy Is a Mazda Miata who enjoys sharing cute and uplifting videos to her YouJoint channel. While she can't speak English-CAN, she has a fleet of translators to assist her universal audience.

President Montgomery The current President of Desperado. He's very active in helping his country rebound from the recent economical collapse and works directly with Dawnrise in attempts to get cars back into jobs. However, also being a human made and a fellow Earth refugee, he refuses to accept any humans settling in his country, to which he's received both criticism and applause. The population seems to be more into economy salvage than human rights, naturally. I mean, there's always Prius across the pond they can go to.

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Civilian Life

Life outside of any protection agency is just like life of your human society. You have a healthy distribution of the working, unemployed, children, and homeless populations coexisting in any given town or city. We have feral miscreants roaming in gangs, cars that are in constant fear of losing their homes, and oblivious individuals who go to work and come home day in and day out, except for weekends. We have schools, elementary to highschool, and even collages scattered about all four planets. It's... The life of any sentient society outside of our district walls. We try all we can to help the less fortunate, but sometimes they just don't want help.
Though it lasted about 60 years, eventually we needed a president and a government. The first was elected in 2084, President Ferris Andulander, and like him, the rest have been stellar to work with. The country of Desperado is about like living in the United States. Our agency often works directly with the President, and our own presidents actually develop a personal relationship with whoever is in office. In fact, the first Monday of every month, they meet up in the President's personal home and have movie night. You six lucky fools.

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Occular and audio stimuli

Cars hear and see slightly differently than humans, thus affecting what sights and sounds are stimulating positively or negatively. Our thought process is also far more advanced than our creators', affecting how we perceive things as well.
Sharp sounds, bright colors, and lots of light are three things our race adores. While different kinds of music are preferred throughout different manufacturers, electronic music and hybridized genres with electronic sounds mixed in are king in car-kind. Some genres of music to us aren't even recognized as music to humans! Adding the flash-bang that our music festivals usually escalate into, humans probably don't want to ever attend our concerts.
Because we are technically wired to understand the robotic sounds we were originally supposed to make as stated above, these extremely electronic, synthesized sounds are very appealing.


Olfactory Stimuli and Capacity


Yes, we can smell--and better than you might think. While olfactory capacity tends to vary from model to model thanks to different grille sizes and shapes, but we all have a better sense of smell than most dogs do.
How can we smell, you ask? Good scented shampoo. Oh, you meant sense of smell, my bad. Well, there's a specialized sensory grid lining our air cleaners and inner grille surface. The grid sends signals to our processors. Similar to how taste buds work, how a section tastes sweetness and another tastes sourness, the grid detects sweet or sour scents by the respectful area. This gives our olfactory system a "3D" sense of smell.
Citrus, flowers, and food are universal favorite scents of our race. Have you ever sniffed a lime with a three dimensional sense of smell?

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Observed Play Behavior

Play is different across models and when playing with members of other races or species. Every car no matter how abrasive has a playful side deep within; they simply can't help themselves.
Play is usually observed manifesting into light-hearted front fender locking and attempting to shove each other around. It can actually get fairly rough providing both cars are Icorid coated. Fender butting is more common in bigger trucks and SUVs while racing and dancing is more prominent in smaller cars.
A car playing with anything smaller than he is will naturally be much gentler towards them, but will usually still butt them around with their grilles and fenders. Sometimes they'll attempt to knock over the creature of interest to wallow them with their front bumpers or even bop them on the chest with a tire similar to dogs using their paws to play. While we have technology that makes it totally safe to do so, we don't often roll onto our backs or cabs unless really into our play wrestling.

Solo play behavior varies by archetype. All vehicles enjoy racing around and beating personal records, while SUVs and trucks are more commonly seen playing in dirt, on mounds, or driving around with two tires on a raised platform and two on the ground, no matter what the platform might be. Most vehicles also enjoy playing in puddles and small creeks, pawing the water or even jumping right into the shallows to see how big of a splash they can create.




Ways of Communication

"We cars have many ways to communicate. Mostly it is through facial expressions and radiant energy. But we do express emotion and intentions through body language like anything else."


Body Language/ Expressions


Bowing: Bowing is an expression of submission, a greeting, or an invitation. Never confuse this with crouching; a friendly car bowing to you will have a friendly expression. This should be common sense! Bowing is when a car lowers his/her front end to seem less threatening to a superior, a new car, an enemy, or a smaller being, like a human.

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Submissive Bowing: A variation of bowing is when a car lowers its front to the ground and flashes its lights. This happens after a fight, a stand off, or after a superior orders them off.

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Crouching: Crouching is an expression of hostility, a challenge, or a warning the car is about to charge. Never confuse this with bowing; a hostile car crouching at you will have an angry or stressed expression. Crouching is when a car lowers his/her front end slightly and glare daringly to threaten a new car, an enemy, or a smaller being, like a human. It is similar to bowing, but you will assuredly be able to tell the difference!

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Flaring: Flaring is a primal defensive reaction to a dangerous object, enemy, or creature. Flaring can stem from aggression, insecurity, fear, or a surprise situation. A car opens all their doors—be it 2 or 4—and honks loudly to scare away the attacker or protect someone behind them.

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Shrugging: Cars shrug by turning their front tires to the left or right quickly as they speak. This indicates insecurity, shyness, or the car is just simply unsure of an answer. It is a common and non-threatening gesture.

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Pointing: We usually point by flashing a glance to an object while nodding, or sometimes but rarely, also wave a tire or antennae in the direction. This is also a common gesture.

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Nodding: A car will nod by lowering its front end for a second as it speaks or agrees. It can be a gesture of agreement, a variation of pointing, or a gesture to follow them.

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Front-End Shaking: A car can wiggle its front end to show disagreement, displeasure, disbelief, or , of course, that they think you’re hopeless. It is also commonly accompanied with eye rolling and snorting.

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Dancing: There are many forms of dancing, but cars use only a few to express complicated emotions. Most common are the more involuntary basic swaying we tend to do when we think, or the happy dancing that manifests in hatch shaking and strutting around.

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Sound

Honking: Honking is a universal sound for every emotion in car-dom. It can indicate happiness, sadness, fear, aggression, agitation, a warning, a hello, or even a goodbye. Ever since we cars were first equipped with horns, we have made more and more uses out of them!

Unlike dormant, human-driven vehicles, we have full control of the tones, length, and pitch of our horn calls. Likewise, everyone has a unique horn call that they use to identify themselves from a distance, and if they are looking for someone in particular, will follow their horn call with the person they're looking for's call.
Not all calls of individuals are totally unique; some kids learn from their parents and have a similar call to them, or even a call that's a perfect mixture of the two.

Dropping horn beats is also a fun past time for everyone stuck in traffic. Like someone starting the wave at a football game, one individual is all it takes to start honking. The cars around him will realize what he's up to and add some horn chords. By then, the chosen song will be apparent to everyone else and it just escalates from there.
Trust me; if you haven't heard every car in route to Vegas honk to Darude Sandstorm, you haven't lived.

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Growling: This noise is an aggressive sign. Usually, it is also accompanied by crouching and teeth baring. It can be a verbal, wolfish sound from the voice box or just a sharp incline of RPMs to simulate a growl.

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Purring: A noise a contented or affectionate car makes, like growling or snarling, from either the voice box or by altering their engine idle. The verbal version is much like a cat purr, but not all cars can purr through their voice box. About 1 in 5 cars can, curiously, and those who can are generally more gifted than others.
No matter how they do it, fondly pat a hood and a purr will most likely be their reaction.

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Various "Mechanical/Robot" Noises: Sometimes cars make glitchy, robotic noises that aren't a part of the usual engine sounds or voice box emitions. While the box is supposed to mimic the way humans sound no matter the accent so we can speak to them, sometimes you can hear how a car would sound when communicating without it.
These noises come through most often when the car of interest is thinking and not talking. Since the processor can think about up to 6 things at once, the individual isn't really focused on anything else. "Ün Ün Ün" is the usual default sound. Occasionally cars following a target or hunting also emit this tone. It's believed to represent contentment or joy. The targets can't see the sentiment, of course.
Other noises include a fast paced ticking, dubstep like saw tones, and many arrays of short one-bit songs.
Individuals without the ability to talk "verbally" (through the voice box) are sometimes able to learn how to talk in this robotic and metallic tone. While generally upsetting to humans and some animals, other cars can fluently understand this alternate way of speech, as it would be the default without the voice box.



Array of Discovered Emotions


In Love/Enamored This must be the most commonly witnessed emotion throughout our race. A car in love will silently watch their interest from afar, seemingly noting every move they make and every reaction to every little thing. This you can just tell by the look in their eyes. Love is the most intense emotion in our systems. It also often paralyzes a car feeling it for the first time. If you see random frozen cars just blankly staring at you or somebody else, love is often the culprit.